Category: Hope & Change

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German Catholic Church Changes The Law To Permit Hiring Of LGBTQ People

By Shone Palmer

A new labor law was passed by the Catholic Church in Germany which allows people of the LGBTQ community to work under the church without being discriminated against or fired on the grounds of their sexuality.

The law was passed following a protest conducted last year by the employees of the Church who came out as queer. This new change was part of a greater drive to encourage tolerance and a feeling of oneness inside Catholic institutions.

The church officials also stated that according to the new law anyone can be part of the activities of the church that is ultimately meant to serve people and to exist for the general good in the world. There wouldn’t be any sort of biased behavior in terms of their personal choices unless it doesn’t go against the core values of the gospel itself.

Catholic Church In Germany Changes Policy To Includes LGBTQ Workers

The German Catholic Women’s Community hailed the decision and said that this is one of the most progressive decisions taken by the German Catholic Church which would be remembered throughout history.

The German state labor courts had been always critical of the labor laws of German Catholic Institutions as these didn’t go in agreement with the general labor laws of the country.

In 2011, a German labor court stated that the dismissal of a doctor who worked at a Catholic hospital on the grounds of his remarriage was unlawful.

There was a mass protest in January when around 125 employees of the German Catholic church came out in open with their queer status and raised their concern about living without fear under the catholic institutions in Germany.

There were many employees of the Catholic church like Priests, Religious teachers, and staff of administration who participated in the protest to uphold their identity and freedom.

It garnered a lot of publicity and sparked a massive debate over the stand of the Catholic Church on their hostility towards the LGBTQ community.

Usually, the work contracts of employees would be canceled if they were known to be from the LGBTQ community and the Catholic clergies refrained from blessing same-sex marriages as they considered it to be a “sin”.

The new amendment comes as a big step for the Catholic church and a success story for the LGBTQ community worldwide. The Central Committee of the German Catholics remarked that the decision was “overdue”.

Apart from same-sex relationships, the German Catholic Church was critical of people who remarried after divorce. This was also considered to be an unacceptable behavior and these people also were at risk of losing their jobs anytime.

These orthodox rules at the workplace were highly against the spirit of a democratic society as labor rights were applicable to every individual regardless of their personal lifestyle choices. The people who lived under such scrutiny for a long time had finally come out and expressed their anger and frustration through the protest.

The Conference also added that the amendment is directed at fostering a positive attitude among individuals toward the church and the teachings of the gospel.

Around the world, most catholic institutions are not welcoming of the LGBTQ community. Even in the US, the struggle for LGBTQ rights and social acceptance is still being fought every day.

Even though the situation has become much better compared to the past actions of religious prosecution of the queer communities, it still has a long way to go in terms of policy developments, social laws, and equal opportunities.

This amendment made by the German Catholic church shall be among the forerunners in the march towards queer rights.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Pope Francis sets off a contest over the future of the Catholic Church

— An unprecedented global consultation of the faithful is galvanising rival liberals and conservatives

By Tony Barber

The American priest and author Andrew Greeley once said: “The opposite of Catholic is not Protestant. The opposite of Catholic is sectarian.” But just as secular politics in western countries is a battleground between mutually suspicious conservatives and liberals, so Greeley’s appeal to respect differences of religious opinion is drowning in a doctrinal struggle for control of the Roman Catholic Church.

The contest is all the sharper because Pope Francis turns 86 next month. Even if he does not emulate his predecessor Benedict XVI, who abdicated in 2013, the question of who will replace him looms large.

Papal infallibility, a doctrine proclaimed in 1870, is not rigorously applied these days, but the pontiff’s views carry unique authority. Disputes in Francis’s reign over women’s ordination, the Church’s treatment of divorcees, use of the Latin mass, sex abuse scandals and financial irregularities at the Vatican are therefore conducted with one eye on the cardinals’ conclave that will at some future date select the next pope.

Francis is no darling of progressive Catholics, for whom his approach to issues such as women’s role in the Church and homosexuality is too cautious. Still, conservatives correctly regard him as more reformist than Benedict or John Paul II, whose 1978-2005 pontificate made him the second-longest serving pope in the Church’s more than 2,000-year history. A case in point is Francis’s clampdown on the old Latin mass, which reversed Benedict’s decision to permit the celebration of some sacraments according to ancient rites.

Throughout his reign, however, Francis has emphasised healing the Church’s divisions as much as modernising its outlook and practices. In this spirit, he last year launched a global consultation of the faithful — an attempt to gauge the mood of the world’s Catholics, estimated by the Vatican at more than 1.3bn people, and chart a path for the Church’s future. He may have unleashed more than he bargained for.

From dioceses across the world a torrent of reports has poured in. Many call for reforms, blocked since the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, to allow married clergy, women priests and acceptance of artificial birth control. A Vatican document last month observed: “Almost all reports raise the issue of full and equal participation of women.” On the other hand, conservative regions of the world — usually outside Europe and North America — are urging the Vatican not to yield to liberal pressure.

Francis’s consultation goes by the unwieldy name of the “synod on synodality”, implying inclusive discussion of pressing issues, though certainly not binding democratic votes. Yet the synod represents uncharted waters for the Vatican — and there is a cautionary historical parallel for Francis’s initiative. It is to be found in France on the eve of the 1789 revolution.

With the monarchy in crisis, Louis XVI summoned the Estates General — the future national assembly — to break the deadlock on reform. All across France, constituencies submitted so-called cahiers de doléance, or lists of grievances, as Catholic dioceses have done over the past year. A sort of nationwide opinion survey, the process prompted delegates meeting in Versailles to conclude that there was a public mood in favour of representative institutions, individual liberty, equality under the law and an end to absolutism. In the second half of 1789, the tide of revolutionary change became unstoppable.

It is premature to expect anything so world-shaking in the Catholic Church, where opinion appears more equally balanced between shades of radical reformism, moderate liberalism, mild conservatism and reaction. To take one example, the US consultation revealed deep splits on LGBTQ inclusion, clerical sexual abuse and the liturgy. “Participants felt this division as a profound sense of pain and anxiety,” the US bishops’ conference reported in September.

However, the central point is that both liberals and conservatives are discovering the force of public opinion. Cardinals, bishops and lay pressure groups frame their arguments for or against change in theological language but, as in France in 1789, notables and activists are seizing on the mood of society to advance and legitimize their causes.

The synod was supposed to end next year, but Francis recently extended it until October 2024. By then, either he will still be pope or an as yet unknown successor will be wearing his mitre. Either way, the struggle over the Church’s direction that has rumbled on since the Second Vatican Council and is being amplified by his synod may well be fiercer than ever.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Women Priests, Homosexuality, Not Closed Debate In Church, German Bishop Says

Chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop of Limburg and President of the Synodal Way Georg Bätzing holds a news conference in Frankfurt, Germany, February 5, 2022.

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A leading German Catholic bishop on Saturday contested the Vatican’s view that debates about women priests and homosexuality were closed, saying they will have to be confronted in the future.

Bishop Georg Bätzing spoke at a news conference at the end of a week of talks between Pope Francis and Vatican officials on one side, and all of Germany’s bishops on the other.

They centred on a controversial German progressive movement, known as the “Synodal Path”, that aims to give lay Catholics a say on some doctrinal matters as well as the appointment of bishops.

The movement has alarmed Catholic conservatives and moderates around the world, who fear that it could lead to massive splintering similar to what happened in Anglican and Protestant Churches after they introduced similar changes in recent decades.

“As far as the ordination of women is concerned, for example, (the Vatican’s) view is very clear, that the question is closed. But the question exists and it has to elaborated and discussed,” said Bätzing, who is bishop of Limburg and head of the German Bishops Conference.

The Catholic Church teaches that women cannot be priests because Jesus chose only men as his apostles and that while same-sex attraction is not sinful, homosexual acts are.

Some Church progressives want the Catholic catechism to be changed so that it does not condemn homosexual acts in a committed relationship and to open a process leading to women’s ordination.

“All these questions are on the table (of the German Synodal Path) and all attempts of cancel them will not have success,” Bätzing said.

“Popes have tried to say the question (of women priests) is closed but the fact is that the question exists. Many young women say ‘a church that refuses all of this cannot be my church in the long run,'” he said.

In 2021 the Vatican’s doctrinal office ruled that priests cannot bless same-sex unions.

In September, Flemish Roman Catholic bishops issued a document allowing the practice.

Asked if he would bar priests in his diocese from blessing same-sex unions Bätzing said: “I will not deny God’s blessing from those in committed relationships who are seeking it”.

In July, the Vatican tried to slam brakes on the German movement, saying it risked causing a schism in the universal Church.

Bätzing said he did not see such a risk.

“It (schism) is not an option for any bishop or lay person in Germany. We are Catholics and we will remain Catholics but we want to be Catholics in a different way,” he said.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Vatican urges German Catholic Church to put brakes on reform

FILE – The chairman of the Catholic German Bishops Conference, Cardinal Georg Baetzing, speaks to the media in Bonn, Germany, Feb. 25, 2021. Top Vatican cardinals called for pause in the on the German Catholic Church’s controversial reform process during an unusual Vatican summit Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, fearing proposals concerning gays, women and sexual morals will split the church. Bishop Georg Baetzing, who heads the German bishops conference, explained the work undertaken so far, stressing that it was based on listening to the “people of God and the pain over abuses committed by clergy”.

By NICOLE WINFIELD

Top Vatican cardinals tried to put the brakes on the German Catholic Church’s controversial reform process Friday, fearing proposals concerning gays, women and sexual morals will split the church and insisting they would be better debated later.

The Vatican and the German bishops conference issued a joint statement after a week of meetings that culminated with an unusual summit between the 62 German bishops and top Vatican officials, including the No. 2 secretary of state, the head of the bishops’ office and the head of the doctrine office.

The pope, who met separately with the German bishops on his own on Thursday, was originally supposed to attend Friday’s summit but did not, leaving it to his cardinals to toe the Vatican line.

Germany’s church launched a reform process with the country’s influential lay group to respond to the clergy sexual abuse scandals, after a report in 2018 found at least 3,677 people were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014. The report found that the crimes were systematically covered up by church leaders and that there were structural problems in the way power was exercised that “favored sexual abuse of minors or made preventing it more difficult.”

Preliminary assemblies have already approved calls to allow blessings for same-sex couples, married priests and the ordination of women as deacons. One has also called for church labor law to be revised so that gay employees don’t face the risk of being fired.

The German “Synodal Path” has sparked fierce resistance inside Germany and beyond, primarily from conservatives opposed to opening any debate on such hot-button issues and warning that the German reforms, if ultimately approved in the final stage, could lead to schism.

Such warnings were echoed by Vatican Cardinals Marc Ouellet, in charge of bishops, and Cardinal Luis Ladaria, in charge of doctrine, in the meeting Friday.

According to the joint statement, they “spoke with frankness and clarity about the concerns and reservations of the methodology, content and proposals of the Synodal Path and proposed, for the sake of unity of the church,” that they be dealt with later, when the global Catholic Church takes up such issues in a universal way next year.

The statement said a “moratorium” was proposed, but was rejected.

Francis has since launched a global “synodal path” which involves soliciting input from lay Catholics around the globe that has echoed many of the same themes as the German process, including the role of women in the church and homosexuality. But there is no indication the global church is prepared to go as far as the German church in pressing for change.

Francis, for his part, has personally intervened on the German process and recently pointed to a 2019 letter he wrote to the German faithful as summarizing all he has to say on the matter. In that letter, Francis offered support for the process but warned church leaders against falling into the temptation of change for the sake of adaptation to particular groups or ideas.

Bishop Georg Baetzing, who heads the German bishops conference, for his part, explained the work undertaken so far, stressing that it was based on listening to the “people of God and the pain over abuses committed by clergy,” the statement said.

Baetzing is scheduled to give a press conference on Saturday.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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LGBTQ voices emerging in Vatican’s synod

by Terry Mattingly

The “Chain of Discipleship” image showed five Catholics celebrating at a church, including a woman in priest’s vestments and a person in a rainbow-letters lettered “pride” shirt who is shouting “We are the young people of the future and the future is now.”

This art from the Philadelphia Catholic Higher Education Synod rocked Catholic social media — especially when it appeared on the Synod of Bishops Facebook page, linked to the ongoing Synod on Synodality that began in 2021.

Catholics at the local, regional and national levels are sending the Vatican input about the church’s future. A North Carolina parish submitted testimony from “Matthew (not his real name),” who had been recognized as his Catholic high school’s most popular teacher. While “hiding his homosexuality,” he married “his partner elsewhere.”

“As a couple, they decide(d) to foster, love and adopt young children internationally,” said this report. “Matthew’s greatest sadness is that he has to hide his sexuality in order to keep his job in a church institution and that he does not feel welcome in the Catholic Church precisely because of his sexuality which he considers God-given, and this despite his attempt to love the poor and destitute through his pro-life decision to adopt.”

Case studies of this kind recently led Belgian bishops to approve a document — “On Pastoral Closeness to Homosexual People” — containing a rite for priests blessing same-sex couples. The bishops appointed a gay layman as inter-diocesan coordinator for LGBTQ care in a land in which 3.6 percent of baptized Catholics attend Mass on an average Sunday.

Meanwhile, it’s important that a Vatican working document includes the term LGBTQ and even LGBTQIA in discussions of topics once considered forbidden, said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, a Catholic gay-rights network pushed aside during the Pope St. John Paul II era.

“The fact that LGBTQ inclusion was raised in this document indicates that this is a topic of global concern, not just the hobby-horse of some Western nations,” he told the press. During New Ways Ministry synod meetings, LGBTQ Catholics showed “their willingness to participate in the life of the church they love so much. … They trusted that Pope Francis truly wanted to hear from them.”

While Catholic progressives have hailed synodality as part of the “Spirit of Vatican II,” Cardinal Gerhard Mueller of Germany, a powerful voice from the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, believes some elements of this process resemble an “occupation of the Catholic Church,” or a “hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

Some synod leaders believe “doctrine is only like a program of a political party” and they can “change it according to their votes,” said the former leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The result is a process resembling the “hermeneutic of the old cultural Protestantism and of the modernism” in which “individual experience” has the same level of authority as the “objective revelation of God,” he told EWTN.

It’s crucial that, under Pope Francis, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2021 said church authorities do not have the power to bless same-sex unions, said Cardinal Francis Arinze, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

“This is what the Flemish Bishops, and indeed all bishops and priests, should be teaching. They should be blessing, not homosexual couples, but properly married unions of one man and one woman,” said the Nigerian cardinal. “Human beings have no power to change the order established by God the Creator. … This includes calling people to repentance, sacrifice, chastity and perfection.”

The word from Belgian bishops is different — that Catholicism is learning and evolving through contact with modern believers seeking change on marriage, sexuality, divorce and the ordination of women, argued Father Jos Moons, a Jesuit professor at University of Louvain.

“The Flemish Church is repositioning itself,” he argued, writing in La Croix, an independent Catholic newspaper in France. “The bishops opt for warm, pastoral closeness, without judgments, warnings and prohibitions.”

The synod document, he stressed, is “fully Roman Catholic” built on Amoris Laetitia (“the joy of love”), a 256-page document by Pope Francis. “The Flemish bishops emphasize conscience. By this they mean the personal dialogue with God, which forms itself in dialogue with Church teaching, fellow believers, society and one’s own inner self.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!